TTP Report: Apple and Google Still Have a Chinese VPN Problem
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 12, 2025
Contact: Michael Clauw, mclauw@campaignforaccountability.org, 202.780.5750
WASHINGTON, D.C. – New research suggests that Apple and Google’s app stores continue to offer private browsing apps that are surreptitiously owned by Chinese companies, more than six weeks after they were first identified in a report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a research initiative of Campaign for Accountability (CfA).
Because Chinese companies can be forced to share user data with the Chinese government, these VPNs put Americans’ privacy and U.S. national security at risk. TTP’s new research also identifies instances where Apple and Google may be profiting from these apps by taking a cut of subscription revenue.
CfA Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith said, “After being informed of this issue once already, Apple and Google continue to make many of these VPN apps available to Americans without warning them of the security risks. It’s now fair to question whether the large profits Apple and Google make from their app stores have anything to do with this inaction.”
TTP’s April 1 report found that more than 20 of the top 100 free VPNs in the U.S. Apple App Store in 2024 showed evidence of Chinese ownership. Several of the apps were linked to Qihoo 360, a Chinese cybersecurity firm that has been sanctioned by the U.S. over its ties to China’s military. After the Financial Times asked Apple for comment on these findings, two of the apps linked to Qihoo 360—Thunder VPN and Snap VPN—disappeared from its app store. A third was pulled later, but two other Qihoo 360-linked apps remained available for download.
As of the May review, the Google Play Store continued to offer four Qihoo 360-connected apps—Turbo VPN, VPN Proxy Master, Snap VPN, and Signal Secure VPN—as well as seven other Chinese-owned VPNs identified in TTP’s initial report. Apple explicitly states that VPNs in its app store “may not sell, use, or disclose to third parties any data for any purpose,” but any China-based app developer can be compelled to share user data with the Chinese government under the country’s national security laws.
Campaign for Accountability is a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog organization that uses research, litigation, and aggressive communications to expose misconduct and malfeasance in public life and hold those who act at the expense of the public good accountable for their actions.